Environmental Law

Terence Centner

Terence J. Centner Lecturer

262N McCollum Hall

Professor Centner joined the law faculty in 2019. His research focuses on the agricultural-environmental interface looking at current issues from a scientific and legal perspective. He has published more than 160 scientific papers and law review articles, and has lectured in 50 countries around the world. He has also published four books: Empty Pastures; Blame Culture; Environmental Law and the Protection of People; and Consumers, Meat and Animal Products.

Prior to joining the Law College faculty, Professor Centner practiced law in New York state, clerked at the Fifth District Court of Appeal in Florida, and taught at the University of Georgia. During his tenure at Georgia, he was an Alexander von Humboldt Stiftung research scholar at the University of Göttingen (Germany), Fulbright Senior Scholar at the University of Mannheim (Germany), Professor at the University of New Orleans Innsbruck Summer School (Austria), Fulbright-Scotland Visiting Professor at the University of Aberdeen (UK), and lecturer at the University of Lucerne (Switzerland).

Professor Centner served as president of the American Agricultural Law Association and received the association’s Distinguished Service Award. Under the auspices of Great Plains AG*IDEA, an interactive distance education alliance, he helped develop an online agricultural law certificate. In 2015, he was awarded the Food and Agricultural Sciences Excellence in University Teaching Award by the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

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Professor Anthony Schutz

Anthony Schutz Associate Dean for Faculty & Marvin and Virginia Schmid Foundation Professor of Agricultural Law

Professor Schutz has been with the law school for nearly all of the last 20 years, beginning in 2000. During law school, he worked for Cline, Williams, Wright, Johnson, and Oldfather in Lincoln, Nebraska, and was editor-in-chief of the Nebraska Law Review. He graduated in 2003 with the highest distinction and clerked for the Honorable C. Arlen Beam of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit until 2005. During the 2004-2005 academic year he also taught Legal Research and Writing at the College of Law as an adjunct instructor. During the 2005-2006 academic year he was a Visiting Lecturer in the Lawyering Program at the Cornell Law School. He came back and began teaching here in 2006. Since then, he has taught courses in Agricultural Law, Environmental Law, Water Law, Land Use Regulation, State and Local Government Law, and Contracts. He is currently serving as the Associate Dean for Faculty, which he began in 2020. He is the faculty advisor for the Agricultural and Environmental Law Society, moot court, and Nebraska Connections. The latter role is related to the Rural Law Opportunities Program, which Professor Schutz also leads. 

The product of a farm family in Elwood, Nebraska, Professor Schutz's research interests include the often intertwined subjects of agricultural law, environmental and natural resources law, and state and local government, all of which have significant impacts on rural landscapes and populations. Professor Schutz has served as the chair of the AALS Section on Agricultural Law, is active in the American Agricultural Law Association and the Rocky Mountain Mineral Law Foundation, and is a frequent lecturer on agricultural and water law issues regionally and nationally. He tries to keep a close eye on the legislature and encourages students to speak up and take part in the legislative process, both while they are here and in their professional lives going forward. 

Professor Schutz has three daughters, Ani, Berlyn, and Celia. His Partner, Joni, and her three children, Abbie, Collin, and Cian, complete a Brady Bunch mixed family (without the Alice, which is much more difficult). From time to time, Professor Schutz finds his sanity by running. He's completed many marathons and a few ultra-marathons, trying to keep up with Joni. 


Watch to see how Professor Schutz's research explores the statutory power given to NRDs in the state of Nebraska. 

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